Maus

I find myself appalled at the fact that I genuinely enjoy reading Maus. I am entranced when I'm reading Art Spiegalman's words. My hunger, thirst, and sleepiness all subside after the first one or two page turns. Does that make me a bad or strange person? 
The voice of Vladek is so real and feels very personal to me. The pain he feels over his past and how it's causing pain to his family many years later speaks to me. Vladek is a very complicated man that no can seem to ever fully understand. The trauma that he endured during Nazi occupied Germany and Poland is enough to turn any sane and normal man into a monster. Even though he comes through the war and begins to lead a somewhat normal life, the love of his life dies without explanation. She was not lost to the cruelty of the Nazis, to starvation, physical illness, or some traumatic accident; she died by her own hand. I feel that Vladek would have an exceptionally hard time coping with her death because of all they had gone through together. He fought diligently for their survival, literally risking his life time and time again to make sure that Anja had food to eat and somewhere to sleep. They survived one of the worst atrocities known to man, started a new family and lived a fairly typical life. Anja gave all of that up. I can imagine that Vladek, in his deep grief, believed Anja felt his earlier sacrifices meant nothing and could have been a reason why she took her life without telling her family goodbye. I really feel for Vladek. I'm not diminishing the pain felt by Art, as his childhood was rough, but his pain is vastly different from the kind his father endures.